The Official Lone Worker's Guide to Working in Winter Weather
Table of Contents
Introduction
Understanding the risks
Hypothermia
Frostbite
Slip and fall hazards
Reduce visibility and driving dangers
Isolation and communication challenges
Dress warm for success
Staying warm
Staying hydrated
Communication and emergency preparedness
Vehicle safety in winter conditions
Mental health and coping
Embrace the winter
Introduction
While working outdoors – and indoors – during the winter months, you may face several occupational hazards unique to that time of year. However, people working alone face hazards specific to lone work and increased risk of these occupational hazards due to their isolated circumstances.
In this guide, we will look at the safety hazards that impact a lone worker's well-being and six critical areas within winter work safety that, when prioritized, will help ensure the safety of your people working alone. The areas discussed below have a significant thread connecting them all – preparedness and proactive safety.
Understanding the risks
The safety hazards that lone workers face during the winter are diverse and complex. Therefore, to properly address and eventually mitigate each hazard, they must first be identified through an exhaustive hazard assessment or job hazard analysis of the work environment and conditions. Several cold-related occupational hazards generally impact work safety during the winter, including:
Hypothermia
Do you know what is considered normal body temperature? According to the OSHA, the average normal body temperature is 98.6 °F (38 °C), and hypothermia occurs when it drops below 95 °F (35 °C). The symptoms can entail uncontrollable shivering, indicating a mild case or impacted coordination, speech, and breathing/heart rates for severe cases of hypothermia, which can also lead to unconsciousness and death when not treated quickly.
Frostbite
If employees are working in cold, windy environments, they may be at risk of frostbite; it occurs when exposed skin (and the tissue below it) freezes, causing a prickly sensation, numbness, and a waxy appearance with a different color ranging from red and purple to yellow and white. Frostbite can be very painful, resulting in immobility of the joints and limbs, severe blisters, and dead tissue.
Slip and fall hazards
When working in wet and icy conditions, lone workers face the dangers of slips and falls – from low and tall heights. These types of injuries are very common during fall and winter. However, lone workers experience significantly greater risk because they do not have a coworker to help them if they do fall and hurt themselves while at work.
Reduced visibility and driving dangers
Like slips and falls, the dangers of driving to and during work significantly increase over winter. This is due to the risk of several safety hazards such as icy, slippery roads, reduced visibility when driving on those roads, as well as mechanical issues due to thickened fluids like antifreeze and difficulty starting the vehicle due to electrical resistance, impacting the performance of your battery and sparkplugs.
Isolation and communication challenges
When employees work in isolated, remote locations, their safety is remarkably lower because sending help in an emergency can be a significant challenge. This is a result of the difficulty in accurately locating where they need help and communication issues due to their remote coordinates; there may also be accessibility challenges with dangerous roads and extreme weather conditions.
Dress warm for success
The clothing you wear for work is important at any time of the year but is more so during the winter when it protects you from cold-related severe injury, illness, and death.
Wear layers so that clothing can be removed or added as needed depending on the lone worker's temperature, mobility and comfort.
Wear high-visibility clothing that coworkers and members can easily see of the public. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) says employees must wear work clothing that's highly visible in either fluorescent orange-red, fluorescent red, or more commonly, fluorescent yellow-green.
Wear insulated and waterproof footwear when working in cold, wet work environments where cold, frostbitten feet are a real occupational hazard. Use footwear with effective tread and traction on slippery surfaces and work areas.
Identify and eliminate fall hazards by regularly clearing walkways, shoveling snow, and organizing any other work areas where fall hazards are detected.
Properly maintain equipment for cold temperatures so that they can perform properly and safely, including vehicles, heavy machinery, and electronics whose functions can be impacted.
Staying warm
In addition to proper clothing and footwear, lone workers also require insulated gloves that have an effective grip when grabbing objects in cold, wet environments, as well as insulated, protective headwear. In very cold temperatures, lone workers may need hand warmers with their gloves.
The OSHA says that to prevent cold stress issues such as hypothermia and frostbite, employers must provide safety measures such as:
"Frequent short breaks in warm, dry areas, to allow the body to warm up."
"Warm, sweet beverages. Avoid drinks with alcohol."
"Engineering controls such as radiant heaters."
"Monitor workers physical condition."
Staying hydrated
Unlike the safety risks of hypothermia and frostbite, dehydration is not a well-known hazard of working outdoors during the winter. Health experts recommend maintaining work hydration in several ways, for instance:
Constantly drinking warm fluids such as tea, broths, soups, and warm water with lemon. (They suggest avoiding caffeine when possible – it's a diuretic making you lose water.)
You are making hydration a part of the routine and workday, drinking your fluids of choice at certain times or regularly.
Eating water-rich fruits and vegetables, including citrus, melons, tomatoes, and cucumbers.
Communication and emergency preparedness
Strong internal communication between the lone worker and the employer or safety monitor is key when improving the safety of these people in winter. This includes an internal communications plan outlining the organization's communication protocols and emergency contact information, showing the lone worker and employer how to converse in certain situations, such as emergencies. The communications plan educates the lone worker about when and how to request help in an emergency or accident.
Because of this, communication channels and devices are a priority with work safety programs, available in formats ranging from compact two-way radios to innovative smartphone applications that use cellular and Wi-Fi networks and GPS and satellite-tracking technology. SafetyLine's lone worker app provides several communication options, including voice and text messaging, automated check-ins to confirm their safety, and life-saving motion sensors that will detect dangerous impacts, falls, and when the employee has not moved for a certain period.
Vehicle safety in winter conditions
As mentioned above, driving in the winter for your job can be dangerous. To prepare your vehicle properly, it needs to be filled with any cold-grade fluids like winter windshield washer fluid, it needs winter tires installed, and the pressure must be re-checked, and it must have an emergency preparedness kit that has items such as warm blankets and non-perishable food and water.
For companies that employ people who drive for their jobs frequently during the winter, develop a journey management plan that identifies any hazards and provides a plan to mitigate or avoid such hazards during the travel. This plan also instructs the lone worker on how to react in the case of a vehicle breakdown or accident.
Mental health and coping
On top of the physical occupational hazards, lone workers also may face depression and anxiety from working alone in the cold and in isolation. HR experts say the lack of sunlight may trigger "lethargy, anxiety, difficulty sleeping and concentrating and, in more extreme cases, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)."
It is the employer's responsibility to recognize the signs of mental health problems, including absenteeism, inconsistent work, below-average quality of work, changes in personality and mood swings, and lack of concentration and engagement. Suppose there is concern over the lone worker's emotional health. In that case, the employer can provide coverage for mental health services/resources, organize outdoor activities (professional and social), reach out to the lone worker about their well-being, and provide devices like light books that mitigate the symptoms of SAD.
Embrace the winter
As you have just read, there are several significant hazards while working in winter weather for lone workers, but there are also several ways that the employer can help protect its lone workers from December to March. The key message in all of these safety strategies is "to be prepared," taking proactive steps now so that lone workers can stay safe into the future.
We can't control the weather, so embrace the winter months and do everything you can now so that people working alone will be warm and secure while performing their jobs in the frigid temperatures. Both the employer and lone employee have a significant role in winter safety, so start planning and preparing now.